


The Fate Card Dealt You

by Kintatsujo



Category: Septerra Core
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Character Death, Crass language, Cyborgs, Discussion of prostitution, Discussion of war, Gen, Headcanon, Pre-Canon, Prosthesis, Sexist Language, Transhumanism, discussion of limb loss, discussion of slavery, probably the first fic for this fandom on Ao3 whooo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-15
Updated: 2019-02-15
Packaged: 2019-10-28 18:09:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17792237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kintatsujo/pseuds/Kintatsujo
Summary: Mostly Dogo, some Kira.Or, a look at Araym between deserting the Jinam military and taking on the Wind City job with the Bazaar Bounty Hunters' Guild.





	The Fate Card Dealt You

**Author's Note:**

> Septerra Core, if you've never heard of it, is this gorgeous little game that was basically a sort of love letter to JRPGs of the pixel art era. I and my brother played the hell out of it as teenagers, got the battle system down to a science, and did things like spending three hours getting all the possible dialogue out of conversations. I'm not saying it was the best game of its type; said battle system could get pretty straightforward and it had a pretty linear story, but its worldbuilding and its characters will always stick with me as a huge formative experience.
> 
> If you're a HALO fan you might be interested to know it was an earlier project for HALO's music composer AND for Master Chief's VA (he voiced a major NPC). The main character is a woman named Maya, who may well be one of my favorite protagonists of all time and probably fueled my love of women with enormous guns.
> 
> The WORLD of Septerra Core is a complicated artificial mechanism consisting of seven layers of floating continents and a massive biocomputer at the core. It's pretty kickass. I may have taken some extra liberties here and there with the kinds of things that video games take funny conceits with, because you can't convince me people only eat bread and healing potions, but while this story is heavily about headcanon, there is a LOT I picked up from random dialogue.
> 
> You can now find it at both Steam and GOG for like seven bucks on an expensive day; as it happens I just bought it for the third time just now while trying to figure out what to title this nonsense because the Steam version has some DLC I wanted (the soundtrack and an art book).
> 
> I kind of promised a friend a while ago I'd do a letsplay of this game so I guess I'll probably link that here should it happen and I remember.
> 
> Some terminology:
> 
> Hekgak-A type of flying creature that comes in so many different shapes and sizes you almost wonder why there's only one name for it.  
> Worldshell-The Septerran term for the different continental layers. Usually shortened to just "Shell."  
> Jinam, Ankara-The two countries of Shell Five. They really hate each other.  
> Chosen-The people of Shell One. They're assholes, even the nice ones.  
> Dogo, Kyra- Two of four major mythological figures in Septerra's history, the others being Marduk and Gemma. Dogo's more of a trickster figure while Kyra's generally associated with life and healing and sex and such. Also death, because Thanatos is in love with her I guess. XD Frankly it's sort of a confused pantheon, but I can't say I minded all that much at fourteen. Kyra, Dogo, Marduk and Gemma actually ruled the four suites of the game's card-based magic system. (And yes, the title is referencing the magic system: They're called Fate Cards. I'm really mad it took me so long to come up with a title for this lol)

It was some little town in the middle of nowhere on Shell Six, but honestly Araym couldn't have said later what the name of the place was, or even how exactly he'd managed to get there after crashing in the swamps. It wasn't Jinam, where they'd have probably finished the job they started with his arms and sent him back to the front for desertion, memories wiped and will overridden, and it wasn't Ankara, where they would have just locked him up or killed him for the telltale red hair, obvious even when it had been stubble. (It was in his eyes by the time he left. Hard to worry about the length of your hair when you were more worried about eating.)

Not being Jinam or Ankara were the two most important things about the place.

What he did remember about the town was that while nobody cared enough to attack an obvious Jinam military deserter, people weren't exactly sympathetic, either. Nobody liked fighting right over their heads. He spent most of his days curled against a wall wherever the local businesses would tolerate him, hiding his thin robotic arms as best he could by tucking them under his knees and dozing in the relative safety of the sun, and most of his nights digging through the local bar's garbage. Or stealing. He got pretty good at that after a while.

Sometimes he'd watch the local kids and think about how none of them had ever heard the haunting call of a Helgak right before the Mold Forest lit up like day, had never watched a friend sob tearlessly and still fight to his death without question, or had to kill, or thought they'd die of pain, or thought they'd never see the sun again, how none of them had ever even _left_ this little mudpit and were glad for it. He'd think about it until his jaw hurt, scratching at itching palms that shouldn't itch, couldn't itch. He was the same age as a lot of those kids, but he wasn't a kid anymore.

Around when Araym reached majority, he dug up the remains of the bike he'd deserted in, sold the scrap at the local machinist's, and drunk himself into a ditch.

Why had he decided to enlist? Sometimes Araym thought he remembered. "They won't make you kill, that's the cyborgs' job, they like it, they were criminals," people used to say. Then he'd actually met some cyborgs and they were the best people he'd ever met. Then he'd realized that you didn't blow up a military installation without a few casualties. That planting a mine and walking away didn't mean you hadn't killed the man or woman, or whatever, who stepped on it later. That promises of a safe job, "only" setting a few bombs here and there, "only" figuring out how to defuse Ankaran explosives with completely different wiring, were empty in the middle of a damned _war._

When he'd escaped from being a prisoner of war they'd pinned a little distinguishment to his uniform and sent him back down to the Core. And then when he went and blew his own arms off they just slapped some replacements on and told him that since his new hands were provided by the Jinam government, he'd better get right back on that battlefield and put them to work.

That had been more than enough. He wished he could have said goodbye to the friends he'd made, but half of them were cyborgs and wouldn't have been able to stop themselves from shooting him down where he stood.

Which was why, when he was shaken gently awake one afternoon and opened his eyes to a familiar face of glass and steel, Araym screamed and managed to end up on the roof of a nearby porch. He stopped when the cyborg dropped their rifle in the dirt, but only in surprise, not relief.

There was a middle aged man standing next to the cyborg, tall and lanky with a scraggly beard, dressed more like a pirate than anything, with brown skin and dark blue hair.... Which meant he wasn't from Jinam. What...?

"You sure this is your friend from the military, Lobo?" the man asked. He sounded amused. "Seems more like a jittery stray dog."

_Lobo._

"Araym," the cyborg called, "It's okay. Dad here figured out how to deactivate my restraining chip, and anyway, I doubt Jinam cares about you anymore." His voice was warm and friendly, the subtle insult affectionate. "What are you _doing_ here, the last we saw each other I'd been handing you off to the military surgeons."

He wasn't sure how he'd gotten on the creaking roof, and Araym wasn't exactly sure how he got down, either. He managed to stop just short of throwing his arms around the skeletal figure. "Lobo," he said, unable to keep the relief out of his voice. "I-- what are YOU-- What do you mean 'Dad??'"

Lobo laughed, that gentle chuckle of his. "We have a lot of catching up to do. Should we bring him back home with us, Dad?"

"You gonna be the one to take care of him?" the man asked. The wrinkles around his eyes deepened in a mischievous smile. "I don't want to be the one who ends up feeding and walking the poor bastard."

Araym started in surprise, but Lobo just gave the man he called "Dad" a dour look, affected by tilting his hips and crossing his arms. It was the best he could do without a proper face. "Dad, really, I NEVER have friends over and you have to go and embarrass them before they even get to the front door." The old man laughed.

"Come on, son," he said to Araym. "Any friend of Lobo is welcome to at least a free meal." He paused meaningfully, wrinkling his nose. "And a bath."

"Hot damn," Lobo said. You could _hear_ the grin he couldn't show.

It was the last time Araym ever saw the little town.

 

* * *

It seemed to take hours to get all the grime loose, but then, Araym had been collecting it for quite a while.

He saw the logic, calling the old man "Dad." Removing the restraints in Lobo's head hadn't done anything to restore his memories from before he'd become a cyborg, but they'd done everything to let him really feel like a real person, make his own choices. He'd saved Lobo's soul, in a way. A man who did that for you had _earned_ a title like "Father."

Lobo had been shot down on his way back to the front from taking Araym and some other wounded back to the Jinam doctors. The old man was just a scavenger, not really even from Shell Six, but he'd dug Lobo out of the wreckage, patched him up, found the restraining chip, and pulled it without a second thought.

Fate had dealt them one hell of a hand, hadn't it? All Dogo. Well. A touch of Kyra for Lobo. Araym figured he must have left some serious offerings at her altar in his last life.

"You all primped and pretty by now, kid, or are we waiting a few more hours for dinner?" Lobo asked from outside.

Araym snorted, examining the burn scar that ran along his jawline and spattered up by his lips and nose. The stubble had mostly covered it, and really, it wasn't that awful, but he wouldn't have called himself "pretty." "Hold your Helgak," he answered, pulling on the clean shirt the old man had supplied. It was way too big. Or maybe he was just way too skinny. "It ain't that easy cleaning your junk with metal fingers."

"I wouldn't know," Lobo answered drily. Years ago, Araym might've blushed-- Lobo had the same hands he did; what he was _lacking_ was the _junk._ And basically anything squishy besides his brain. Being in the military had cured that brand of shyness, though.

Dinner was simple-- a bowl of bread alongside some kind of meat and vegetable stir fry-- but compared to the last couple years it was a king's meal. Araym wasn't sure he'd ever see food the same way again.

The old man watched him as he inhaled the meal. "So I assume you were the demolitions expert Lobo had just dropped off," he said. Araym didn't answer in more than a grunt. It wasn't that he minded being asked about it, not really, but... these bread rolls were not going to eat themselves. "How'd you end up in the middle of a nowhere ville on Shell Six? Sounded like the Jinam find skilled men pretty valuable."

Araym waved the hand that wasn't holding food and waggled his two fingers. "Too valuable to rest, even," he answered darkly, and took another bite. "But the time it took for them to screw these things on was just long enough for me to think about everything I'd seen down there." Good, sweet people turned into inhuman machines at a word. The glassy eyes of the dead. The weird natives being round up and shot for being inconvenient. His palms were starting to itch. They couldn't itch. "I'd had enough. So I ran."

The old man nodded and Araym was almost surprised at the lack of judgment in his eyes. "You're awful young," he said. "Weren't even quite an adult back then, I gather. That's too much life to just throw away for someone else like that."

He found himself staring at his plate, not seeing it. "I just want to live on my own terms," he said quietly.

"I can understand that," the old man said, all kind and understanding. Araym sorta wondered if he was going to end up calling the guy "Dad" too, regardless of whether he meant it. Lobo's father was just that kind of person. He leaned across the table and put a hand on Araym's shoulder, still flesh. They'd chopped what was left of his arms off just by the elbows, all careful about making it nice and even. "I may be able to help."

 

* * *

"Help" turned out to mean "new arms."

"Aren't you worried rocket arms are going to be kind of awkward?" Lobo asked at one point.

Well, they _were_ sometimes, but Araym never regretted it.

 

* * *

Araym hadn't really been with the two of them that long before the local pirate lord killed the old man. Connor justified it at least six different ways, of course; Lobo should have joined him, Lobo shouldn't have gotten delusions of humanity, Lobo and Araym had caused too much trouble lately, the old man should have agreed to invent for Connor like he asked, etcetera etcetera etcetera. Araym was pretty sure the robot just had his brainpan screwed too tight. He talked about _Lobo_ having delusions of humanity? What was he doing with all those women he bought?

"I'm not going to ask you to help with my vendettas," Lobo had told him, before they'd hijacked the ship. Araym didn't figure that's what he was doing; he was repaying the old man by giving Lobo something to fight with. Damn shame they didn't have the skills to pull the restraining chips on Lobo's new crew, though; Lobo had had to hack into the Jinam soldiers' systems using the backdoors Jinam itself had given him, and all that did was change their protocols.

They were still some of the sweetest bastards he'd ever met. They'd even apologized for shooting at him, which he'd known perfectly well they couldn't have stopped themselves from doing. He'd apologized, in turn, for denting them up a bit.

"Araym," Lobo said, pulling him aside. "You know the Jinam military police are going to think this was on you, right?"

Araym shrugged. "I already stole valuable military resources--" meaning himself. "I knew a long time ago I was never going to see the streets of Jinam again." He didn't really miss it, hadn't left a lot of family behind.

Lobo nodded. "I know you don't care about that," he said. "I'm worried about them taking offense at you for this and trying to hunt you down."

Huh.

The spindly cyborg contemplated him a minute longer. "I'm taking you to Shell Four, Araym. They'll forget about you when reports come in of us acting on our own, and there's no better place to disappear than the World Bazaar." He chuckled. "You might have an easier time finding honest work, too."

Araym snorted. "Where's the fun in that, man?"

 

* * *

Shell Four's main continent ran all along Septerra's equator, which naturally meant it was almost as warm and muggy as Shell Seven, which was like that because it was nestled up against the Core itself. It got a lot more sunlight, though, so the jungle that fought against the buildings of the Bazaar was nice and green and mostly harmless. (People swore up and down the deeper parts were cursed, of course.)

In some ways, the city reminded him of Jinam; people stacked on top of each other and packed in next to one another like taking a stretch was a sin, but the streets of Jinam had been militaristically clean and meticulously planned. The Bazaar was too old and well worn for things like that; people setting up house in broken pipelines the size of ships or in abandoned storage warehouses, making new houses _out_ of old ships, Helgak and wild animals wandering through the streets, alleyways that were basically rooms you probably _could_ set up house in, women painted up like Kyra offering their bodies for sale in broad daylight, men with bad teeth leering at him from shadows, and moss in all sorts of places you didn't expect to find it.

Within a day Araym had found three separate guys he'd served in the military with, not cyborgs like Lobo, of course, but men who'd known him and clapped him across the back and offered him a roof sometime. One had even offered him a job if he couldn't find work elsewhere, and another pointed him in the direction of the Bounty Hunters' Guild and hinted it was a good place to try. It had been more like coming home than going back to Jinam could have ever managed.

Araym couldn't exactly see himself working as a bartender or selling weird shit by the side of the street, and was firmly warned that trying to work as a bouncer or something _without_ the bounty hunters' blessing was a spectacularly bad idea, so he went to check the Guild out.

He was greeted at the entrance by a guy wearing bracers with knives built in, which was pretty popular in the grittier parts of Shell Six, too. "This the Bounty Hunters' Guild?" he asked. He was pretty sure it was. That insignia painted on the door was twice his height.

"Sure is," the guy said, grinning. "You lookin' to hire one?"

Araym stretched his shoulders, which brought those big fancy forearms Lobo's father had built into full view. "I was _hoping_ to join, actually. I'm not good for much besides knocking heads."

The dude laughed. "Yeah, I get what you're saying. You're gonna have to talk to the Duke about that. Name's Moon, c'mon in."

He directed Araym sit at a round table with some crates set around it for chairs. Come to think of it-- the table itself seemed to just be a wooden circle nailed on top of some crates itself. "Real fancy clubhouse you guys got here," Araym said, letting the sarcasm show in his voice as he eyed the place. Really, it seemed to be some kind of old storage space with a lot of grating and fencing installed to make offices and cells.

Moon chortled. "Man, I _like_ you. What'd you say your name was?"

"Araym."

"Got it. Well, Araym fancypants, you wait right here and I'll have someone let Duke know to look ya over."

Why was it that the way Moon put that was making Araym a little nervous?

 

* * *

Duke, it turned out, was the kind of twerp who wore shaded lenses inside. Araym hated him instantly.

"So, you want to join our guild, hmmm?" Damn, the guy even had an annoying _voice._ It put Araym in mind of one of his old commanders, or a politician. He was surprised the tight scarf Duke was wearing around his mouth didn't muffle it more. "You got any skills? Any kind of experience?"

"I was a soldier in the Resource Wars," Araym said.

"Ain't you from Jinam?" the guy next to Duke asked. Even through his draped mask, it was obvious he was eyeing Araym's hair. "Thought they mostly used robots in the field, I doubt you can actually _fight_."

Araym waved a bulky arm. "Does this look like it was made for doing paperwork?" he asked. "You wanna try me?"

Duke laughed. "Yeah, Locke, give him a try."

The man called Locke snorted. "Sure, someone ought to teach this little boy some manners--"

He was cut off by Araym's left fist rocketing into his gut and knocking him over. The room went silent for a moment, except for the sound of the arm's retroboosters quietly hissing as its internal computer led it back to the mount on Araym's stump. It clicked back into place smoothly. Man, Lobo's father had been some kind of genius.

Locke sat on the floor, staring at him. "You little bastard," he snarled.

Someone snickered, and then Duke started laughing, putting a hand on Locke's shoulder before he could retaliate. "A dirty fighter, that's a good point at least," Duke said, still chuckling. "All right then, Araym. I'll give you a chance with us. Just watch yourself with our senior members, or _I'll_ beat your ass."

Well, Araym thought. You didn't have to like a guy to work with him.

 

* * *

At first he mostly _did_ get bouncer work and the like, sometimes shit like hunting down a deadbeat husband that stole his wife's money, and he was fine with that. Araym liked getting to know the people of the Bazaar, particularly the women.

He got a semi-permanent room at the Ill Repute, which was a bar and brothel run by an older couple (and wasn't that an interesting dynamic, once he'd realized that the madame of the girls upstairs was happily married to the bartender downstairs and still taking customers herself), and it was nice having a reliable place to sleep again. Or. Whatever. They liked him, partly because he was always careful about paying for whatever he owed and partly because he wouldn't stand for anybody harrassing the girls for things the brothel didn't offer. Usually they could take care of themselves, of course, but some customers were just too dangerous to handle alone.

....Araym got into at least six fights with Locke, specifically, just for that. "They're paying me to make sure you guys play nice, c'mon," he'd say, and then he'd point out some of the interesting things _his_ hands could do to a man's anatomy for good measure. You weren't supposed to interfere with a fellow Guild member's contracts, but Locke pretty clearly had decided to make life difficult for him.

"Do they pay you in sex, little boy?" he'd ask, sneer in his voice. Locke never took off that veil, even as one of the brothel's paying customers. It was something to do with some kind of clannish thing or being a follower of Dogo or some weird shit like that: Araym would eventually meet people as far up as Shell Two who wore them. "You know you gotta share part of what you make with the rest of the Guild, son."

And Araym would grit his teeth, because of course they didn't pay him in sex, that was a muddling of finances; and a kiss on the cheek after he'd kicked out a guy who was bruising the merchandise? Well, that fell under gratuities. Then he'd suggest that he and Locke take it outside and then lock the door after him as soon as he'd strutted though. Eventually Locke got the message, but it was pretty funny while it lasted.

All in all, though, it was a good life. The Bazaar? He could think of it as _home._

But then, well, that Chosen woman came along.

Araym happened to be there at the Guild house when she came strutting in, all sleek and pale and clean, a noblewoman looking down her nose in her fancy purple armor with that ornamented little sword on her hip. Her cape bore an oversized symbol of Marduk, and her voice-- which carried all the way to where he was playing cards with Moon and Corben-- had more airs in it than a Helgak's flight bladder. "I wish to buy your services on behalf of my lord," she was saying.

Yup. This one was trouble. And stirring trouble in an entirely different country? That was. That was not sitting right with him at all. But Duke got pissed off enough when he tried to keep out of it.

The whole thing was making his palms itch, for the first time since he'd gotten the ones Lobo's father had built.

And his palms couldn't itch.

They didn't have nerve endings.

**Author's Note:**

> Things are basically ending here because this is about where the actual game starts, haha. Some discussion of possible spoilers for the rest of these notes, if you wanted to avoid that at all.
> 
> Araym and Lobo's backstories have a number of inconsistencies, which is largely what I was exploring here. Lobo says his father freed him of his restraining chip when his ship was shot down, but it can't be the same ship that he later lends to the party, because Grubb then has to do the same for Lobo's cyborg crew. He also talks about being stationed on a warship like one that the party explores, but this also can't be the ship that his father rescued him from because it not only had a much LARGER crew, but most of the cyborg crew survives the ship crashing after it's had an enormous hole blown in it! 
> 
> Furthermore, Araym says he left the military after losing his arms, but his robotic arms are just too unique for me to believe that a country that builds cyborgs on assembly lines would have provided them to him. He and Lobo also talk like they knew each other both when serving in the military and when Lobo was with his father, because Araym knew about Lobo's father getting killed and also didn't seem to think Lobo calling this guy his father was all that strange.
> 
> The reason I presented Araym as not quite having been an adult when he fought in the Resource Wars are for a few reasons; Led, though she was from Ankara, not Jinam, is a teenager, but was apparently old enough to at least TRAIN to fight. I would also be very surprised if Araym is any older than his early thirties during the actual game.
> 
> Araym is sort of a fun character because he presents himself like he's going to be trouble and then is the least troublesome member of the entire party, unless you count Maya herself. By which I mean, he's pretty well rounded and putting him in a party with anybody else isn't going to end up with infighting (Led will randomly attack Lobo and Corgan will randomly attack Selina if they're in a party together, and then you have to go on subquests just to get them to stop). He basically suggests, once you've gone through the quest to get him, that he might decide to leave at any time, but Selina's the one who keeps running off to (cough) consort with the enemy, and then he has a ton of helpful suggestions and is basically the key to getting transportation from Shell to Shell-- twice. I mean, he's got some characterization inconsistencies in my opinion (he both seems rather angry about the idea of militaries using people but also gets a crass comment about slave girls, for example), but he's a lot of fun regardless.
> 
> (Also when Moon asks if Maya's got him on a leash he laughs and tells him to shut up, which is great. Literally every potential indication that Maya has ANY kind of romantic anything with ANYONE involve one-off gags, the other major ones I can think of involving her yelling at someone for teasing Grubb about it, and then teasing one of the same people- part of her army of grandpas- for flirting with Led.)
> 
> There's not really any evidence he covers his mouth because of burn scars, and frankly even if he HAS burn scars that's not why I think he covers his mouth. XD Araym seems to cover his mouth for the same reason basically any characters on Septerra do; there's times that it's practical and the character designers thought it looked good.
> 
> I may have taken this opportunity to pick on Locke (who was a miniboss/puzzle boss) more than was strictly necessary, but if YOU'D spent weeks trying to figure out the trick to beating him while he was being a complete pig and running away every time you fought him, you'd understand my need. Boy do I hate Locke.


End file.
